


Crying Bitter Tears

by Cant_We_Just_Dance



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Cancer vaguely metuioned, M/M, Poetic, Poorly written bc im tired, i dont even know man im just tired and creative, kinda sucks, overly poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 23:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12946188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cant_We_Just_Dance/pseuds/Cant_We_Just_Dance
Summary: Two weeks, four days, seven hours.Two weeks, four days, and seven hours had passed since the funeral, and Alexander had still yet to cry. It was not due to indifference, nor his inclination to act as though such matters as life were beneath him- quite the opposite, in fact. The funeral had been a marking of the end of his love, a sign that it was finally over. Tears of sorrow or relief could have flooded his eyes in that moment, but instead they had remained an ocean beneath his mind.





	Crying Bitter Tears

Two weeks, four days, seven hours. 

Two weeks, four days, and seven hours had passed since the funeral, and Alexander had still yet to cry. It was not due to indifference, nor his inclination to act as though such matters as life were beneath him- quite the opposite, in fact. The funeral had been a marking of the end of his love, a sign that it was finally over. Tears of sorrow or relief could have flooded his eyes in that moment, but instead they had remained an ocean beneath his mind. 

Waves crashed at the ragged cliffs of memories long ago abandoned. The sea salt stained swords forged of stone that was sharpened to the point of silence in those who were unfortunate enough to experience its wrath. Words better left unsaid lay in wait for a time where their attack would be welcome, sitting alongside the waters. 

But water never spilled out over the brim out from Alexander's eyes. It had not done such a thing since he wept bitter tears at the loss of his mother, laying in her cold arms. His lack of tears shed was not from his own stubbornness, but instead an emotional inability. The world is a vibrant place, where lights shimmers in like dawn catching on sea foam and glimmering off into the nothingness. Hues and colors can flow through one's eyes, but only if one allows such a thing to happen. Alexander's dark eyes had made themselves determined to stay untouched by color, near jet-black in hue. 

Thomas's eyes, however, were not. Thomas had eyes with the stars in them, lace cloaked around constellations and catching on galaxies that twisted and twirled into everything one could ever dream of. With coiled curls of hair that framed his cheeks, small bits of the universe reflecting onto dark skin, he had been perfect. Light bent at his fingertips, the slightest touch causing worlds to give way into what they were meant to be. He could change darkness into the light that it so tried to hide, the brightness being inevitable after his sunlight smile came into play. Once, he had done that for Alexander. 

It was back in a time when Thomas's smile found itself a rarity around the darkness surrounding Alexander, in a time when they hadn't even realized that the other man had the capacity to create more than a taunting smirk. Cold air had sunk low beneath their tides, and Alexander had no ability to hold back from lashing out in icy tones. His eyes showed nothing more than the menace he felt toward the other man, and had only been able to assume that Thomas was much the same. Assumptions, as is their nature, have a tender toward incorrectness. 

When Alexander's smile broke through at the sight of the photo he kept on his desk- a small picture of himself and his small group of friends- he hadn't noticed the way Thomas adored it. 

Thomas's eyes would be quick to direct their gaze in another direction, were Alexander to look up from his speeches, where he contorted words into a fantastical routine. 

The world did not stand still, and Alexander followed suit. With each day came the same routine, with the same worried pacing that Thomas would be careful to never show his concern for the man whilst he wore treads into the carpeting. 

Alexander never managed to notice Thomas's careful eyes on him. Until he did. 

It was in a small moment, at first. The world around him was dark and cold, as per usual with the wintertime, and a small space heater did nothing for his office. Thomas had walked by, two trays of coffee in his hands, and spared a glance in Alexander's direction. The shorter man was huddled over his paperwork, doing his best to ignore the chill so deep he could feel it in his bones. Long locks of hair trailed down, still untied from his morning rush, and the longer bits stayed tucked behind his ears. Beside him were multiple coffee cups, empty -of course- and he tried taking a sip from one before setting it down and sighing in frustration. 

Thomas hadn't counted on Alexander looking up, but that's exactly what he did. Meeting Thomas's gaze, the taller man froze, unable to run due to the multiple scalding hot drinks he had in his hands. He wasn't able to move as Alexander stood from his desk, nor when he walked to the door, and not even when he entered the hallway, looking Thomas straight in the eyes. 

"I have coffee!" Thomas exclaimed quickly, trying to prevent the inevitable onslaught of accusations. "I... I brought coffee for the office, and wanted to bring you yours, since your office is right here, but, I... I can't open the door in my current state."

A tense silence filled the air as Alexander raised his eyebrow in doubt and stared up intently at Thomas. And then laughter filled the room. 

Not a warm laughter, no, not warm at all- instead, it was a laughter made of the twinkling of ice the day after a blizzard. It was a kind of laughter that, while new to Thomas, the man immediately knew he wanted to hear again. It seemed as though Alexander laughed so hard that tears would begin to prick in the corners of his eyes- but they didn't. 

Instead, Thomas joined in on the laughter, unsure of the joke, but most certainly aware that this man, whose laughter twisted like edges on snowflakes, was the sort of man that he wished to know far better than he already did. Thomas's laughter was almost accompanied by tears of joy, for such expression was often left hidden from others. Today, he shed no tears from laughter, but most certainly felt it creep up along his lungs like slow-growing ivy. 

If he had the chance, he would bat away the vines and keep them from growing steadily. 

Chances, however, find themselves to be few and far between for those who seek them out all too often.

The next time Thomas found himself laughing in Alexander’ presence, far after the moment Alexander had taken his own coffee cup and smiled softly, it was a warm day. Not hot in the way that makes your hair stick to your cheeks despite your protests, but warm like a dry blanket after playing in the rain. Warm like the last sip of hot chocolate, whipped cream on the tip of your nose and marshmallows on your tongue. It was warm enough that despite being in a meeting, most of the men’s ties were loose- just the slightest bit.

Thomas was standing at the front of the room, giving a presentation that he’d worked on for nearly weeks; he’d be lying if he were to say most of that time was spent writing counter arguments. It was almost a ritual, for the two. Thomas would speak, or make a particularly opinionated remark, and Alexander would stand up and point out the flaws as though they were shards of glass strewn across beach sand. They would argue for a few moments before being forced to stop, and Thomas could continue where he left off. It was only sensible to prepare for the inevitable debate, after all. Presentation, bickering, and returning to the presentation- that was the routine.

So when Thomas made his closing remarks, turning off the projector and smiling politely at the applause, he realized that something felt… off. They way one feels when they stand at the edge of a boat without knowing that they are in fact sinking at a very, incredibly slow rate. Thomas was not close to drowning -not at the moment, anyways- but he still felt those bits of waves flicking at his face with small droplets. They caught in his eyes, making them sting in the slightest way with saltiness, but he wasn’t able to put a name to it until he and Alexander were the last two in the meeting room. 

The taller of the two ceased in packing up his file folders and laptop, lifting his head and staring curiously at Alexander, who remained at his desk, transfixed with whatever image left itself displayed on his phone. SIlence wracked at him as waves of anxiety, all too overbearing and too much too fucking much before he finally-

“Why didn’t you interrupt me?” Thomas asked, voice ringing through the room, rippling across the air and settling like a stepping stone on Alexander’s dark eyes, which shifted their gaze to stare quietly, curiously, up at Thomas. “...When we have meetings, you always interrupt me, to argue about some stupid thing or another. Why didn’t you do it this time? Was my argument really that good?”

In that moment, Alexander let out a cackle, leaning back in his chair and not paying attention to the quiet squeaks until he had leaned back so far that he fell backwards, yelping in shock. It was in that moment that Thomas began to laugh as well, wiping away tears pricking at the corners of his eyes at the sight and nearly doubling over. After a few moments, Alexander let out a quiet chuckle, Thomas calming down, and he stood up from his place on the floor, pulling his chair up with him.

“Nice joke,” Alexander teased, smiling softly, but in a somewhat forced manner. “I just didn’t give a shit. You do know that your plan won't go through unless mine is passed, right?”

“Shut up, Hamilton,” Jefferson spat playfully, rolling his eyes and grabbing his laptop bag, hoisting it over his shoulder before leaving the room, not sparing a glance behind him at the man who still ached from falling. He was well aware that if he did, it wouldn’t turn out very well for him.

So maybe Thomas Jefferson is more than a little bit self-destructive, and he turned around anyways. And perhaps Alexander Hamilton smiled at him as he left the room and casually asked Thomas what he was doing that night, nervousness flooding through the cracks of his voice. If one were to listen closely, and hear the quiet affirmative murmur and a whisper in turn of asking the taller man to dinner, they would find themselves smiling at the words as Thomas agreed.

This was how oceans blended together, softly against each other’s lips at first, until simply words like first names became not only normal, but welcome. They didn’t smile like most people do- not at first. Instead. What they gave each other tended to be small, tiny fragments. A sharp piece of glass here and there, floating in the late afternoon sunlight. Once they began to truly smile, however, it was no longer sunlight.

Instead their smiles were reflections of starlight on the sea, wave ring with each blow of the winds that so controlled the world. Each miniscule glimmer brought with it a new thought, every little shimmer was accompanied by the words that they hadn’t been able to speak before. It was a night that they lay in bed together, blankets tangled around their legs, that Thomas had turned his head and looked over at his lover. Entirely awake but mostly content to lay calmly on the bed, Alexander was not perfect- there were no words in Thomas’s mind that would fit what Alexander was, and somehow, he was okay with that.

Ignoring how choked up he felt in that moment, as though his lungs refused to hold the air that seemed only worth breathing when he had Alexander with him, he asked in a diminutive voice, one that was not his own, “Alexander, do you love me?”

 

Alexander’s eyes shot open in that moment, darkness flooding through and seeping onto the pillow beneath his head as he stared up at Thomas from his place slightly lower down on the bed. “...What did you just ask me, Tommy?”

“I asked if you love me,” Thomas repeated, just as quiet and shy as he had been before, biting his lip sharply enough for coppery crimson to fill his mouth. “It’s fine if you don’t, or you aren’t sure yet, or you just don’t want to have that conversation but I’d really like to know because I really love you and I want to be with you and-”

 

Cutting Thomas off with a kiss, Alexander wrapped the man’s curls around his finger, grinning widely as he pulled away and embraced his lover tightly. 

“I love you too.”

 

Starlight filtered in through the windows, no moonlight in that night, and it framed Thomas’s curls that slightly covered the tears flowing freely down his face. In another life, if Alexander was a braver man, he would have cried as well. The waters would spill out over his eyes and he could pull Thomas in for another kiss, even sweeter this time. But Alexander not a better man, nor was he a brave one.

Not even when Thomas came home nearly a year later -it had already been a year?- and whispered the diagnosis, faint enough that it was nearly silent but not quite enough to require repetition. So Alexander, instead of holding him closely, tightly, and promising a forever of fighting and losing him, had lied.

He lied and lied and lied, but only for one night.

“Please, Alex, you don’t need to stay with me, I wouldn’t want you sticking around just to suffer.”

“I’ll stay as long as I love you.” Lie.

“Hold me closer? Please? I… I just need to be held right now, I’m sorry, I..”

 

“I’ll hold you as long as you need me to, it’s okay, let it out.” Another lie.

“You promise that you aren’t leaving?”

“Of course, Thomas. I love you.” At least that was only half a lie. That was the thought that raced through his head as he packed as quickly as possible while Thomas slept, each breath obviously difficult for his slumbering body to take in and pull out. He was drowning from the inside.

And Alexander had no intentions of sticking around and being dragged down into the depths of the ocean alongside Thomas.

He ran. And he ran and he ran and he ran, until the city lights were but a distant memory, new ones taking place- no stars. He wasn’t high enough up anymore to avoid the bright lights that blocked out the beauty of the sky. Alexander was well aware that he no longer required the sunlight, anyways. Of course, he wanted it- desperately so. If he were a better man, he would admit that to himself and turn back to be home in time to smile at Thomas as he awoke.

However, as already established, Alexander could never be a ‘better man’.

And he wasn’t, until the letter came.

It was a small envelope, and on the front it displayed a gorgeous cursive font, beautiful and gentle in the way it had been scrawled on. But it wasn’t handwriting, now was it? It was simply a font that had been made to look like a welcoming set of letters, handwritten by a close love. After all, when one opens the invitation to a funeral, they have no wishes to feel intimidated, or unwelcome.

Alexander had been leading a colder life than he was used to. He was accustomed to seeing sunlight in the mornings when he awoke, a smile and a kiss to his forehead accompanied by quiet, teasing promises of love. It had been three months since he left, but he still wished for the warmth of morning to return to him. 

Three months.

The doctors had told Thomas that he’d have four.

Alexander didn’t attend the funeral- not really. It was in Virginia, and the sticky-hot heat of the South made him uncomfortable as he drove down the highway, well aware that he would be late to the service. Too late. It didn’t matter, anyways.

When he finally got there, it was that strange hour of day where the sun is somehow at its brightest and the sky is still all too blue. His first thought, no matter how strange it may have been, was that the gravestone was too small for Thomas. Thomas Jefferson was the kind of man to have a statue at the foot of his grave- perhaps an angel, or a cross of the religion he barely believed in. Instead, it was a small bronze plaque. Name, date of birth, date of death, and relationships in his life.

Son (Thomas’s parents had loved him, all the parts except the gay ones)

Brother (His siblings had been a veritable army in their youth, as Thomas had been happy to inform Alexander)

Beloved Friend (James must have been here, at the service. Thomas would have liked that)

Loving Partner.

Alexander had no thoughts to accompany that last part.

But when he lay in his bed, legs sore from the extra space, and his head against the pillows that there were too many of for just one person, he found himself crying bitter tears.

Somehow, he knew he didn’t deserve to be crying them.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment like dude its so easy i like them a lot if you leave an essay ill make out with you and im very tired ill leave now


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